The instant application should be granted the priority dates of Nov. 10, 2005, the filing date of the corresponding German patent application 10 2006 053 047.0, as well as Oct. 24, 2007, the filing date of the International patent application PCT/DE200/001921.
The present invention relates to a composite armor element for protection against projectiles or missiles, as well as an effective body element for insertion in a composite armor element.
Composite armor elements, such a composite armor plates or composite armor mats, which are comprised of a composite of several materials, are known. Frequently, composite armor elements are constructed in such a way that filler material or active or effective bodies are introduced between two, for example plate-shaped, elements, with a matrix material that is capable of being cast, for example polymeric materials or metals, subsequently being cast about the effective bodies.
The plates are frequently provided with end layers. The manufactured composite armor plates can have thick composite fiber layers glued to their back side, thus forming self-supporting armor elements, or they can be applied to metallic vehicle housings, such as a welded steel pan, whereby they achieve the complete protection effect together with the housing structure. It is additionally known to dispose shock-dampening materials between the effective bodies so that the effective bodies do not rest directly against one another in a disadvantageous manner.
DE 1 578 324 describes a composite armor plate, whereby individual balls or cylinders made of a hard ceramic material are utilized as active or effective bodies. The cylinders are disposed in rows in the plate in a plurality of uninterrupted layers or plies, i.e. their longitudinal axes are disposed essentially parallel to the plane of the plate and parallel to one another, whereby the cylinders of one layer are offset relative to the cylinders of the other layer. The cylinders are furthermore spaced from one another, whereby a plurality of layers of a spacing material are used in such a way that each layer of spacing material is alternatingly wound above or below the cylinders in their pertaining layer.
EP 1 071 916 B1 describes a composite armor plate having individual cylindrical ceramic effective bodies, whereby the space between the effective bodies is filled with triangular or hexagonal intermediate space pellets that are adapted to the shape.
EP 1 363 101 A1 describes a composite armor plate, whereby the individual active bodies are provided with a band to reduce the overall weight of the plate.
The drawback of the known plates is that the manufacture is expensive and imprecise due to the large number of the small effective bodes as well as the insertion of shock-dampening materials.
It is an object of the present invention to improve the aforementioned drawbacks.